


The Broken Ones

by Elle Blessingway (elle_blessing)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble Collection, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Multiple Pairings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_blessing/pseuds/Elle%20Blessingway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Naruto'verse drabble, vignettes and ficlets. Pairings and character combinations represented thus far can be viewed at the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/829657/navigate">chapter index</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kiss the Girl (Kakashi Hatake/Sakura Haruno)

**Author's Note:**

> I like Sakura with pretty much everybody. This is where I'll be dumping all my attempts at writing her with various characters. I may also drop a few drabbles in here where she's not featured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Warnings:** None!  
>  **Notes:** a) Thrown together at the Very Last Minute for the **[kakasaku](http://kakasaku.dreamwidth.org)** [October 2012 'Sexy Timez Contest'](http://kakasaku.dreamwidth.org/56746.html) on Dreamwidth. My prompt was 'anonymity'. Please forgive the Throwntogetherness of it. b) First piece ever written for the Naruto fandom. Please forgive the No0bness. Any feedback on what went right (and what didn’t) would be awesome!

“This is ridiculous.”  
  
“Fun, you mean,” Ino corrected as she pulled the silk over Sakura’s eyes. The latter frowned slightly as everything went dark, but was generally feeling too floaty and warm to insist on being able to see.  
  
Or to get righteously indignant that the idea had been suggested to her in the first place. (Nevermind that she had agreed, in the end. That was beside the point.)  
  
“I don’t see how this will accomplish anything,” she said. “It isn’t as if a single kiss is an indication of long-term compatibility.”  
  
“The fact that you say that means we’re doing the right thing,” Ino said as she finished tying the scarf into a bow. She waggled her brows at TenTen on the other side of the bar and got a similar response. The recruiting was going well, then.  
  
The blonde turned her attention back to her best friend. “Forehead, the fact of the matter is that you need to get _laid_. A single kiss is definitely enough to know if the spark is there. If the sex is good, I’m sure you’ll figure out the ‘long-term compatibility’ bits.”  
  
Pale pink brows drew together in a delicate frown. “I can’t find fault with your logic.” She swayed a bit on the stool she was perched atop and Ino righted her friend. “But I _am_ more than a little inebriated and therefore can’t really trust myself to endorse your logic either.”  
  
Ino shook her head. Alcohol was supposed to make people _lose_ their inhibitions. While Sakura wasn’t completely immune to that particular effect (Ino had photographic evidence to prove she wasn’t), she tended to get verbose and philosophical. More than a little tipsy herself, and _definitely_ sure of her own satisfaction later (She tossed a sassy smile at Shikamaru who just shook his head at her), she was on a mission to make sure Sakura was taken care of. Her friend had been particularly moody and temperamental of late, and Ino knew it’d been _ages_ since Sakura and gotten laid.  
  
There were quite a few people who would thank her for taking the edge off of the medic’s temper. She was performing a public service.  
  
“Who’s that?” The bar was abuzz, but Sakura still managed to discern there were people moving toward her.  
  
“None of your business, Forehead. Just pucker up and enjoy yourself.” She made a face at Kiba as he neared and he just leered. Of _course_ he’d be the first one to agree to their little scheme. TenTen gave a thumbs up from behind him.  
  
...  
  
She felt his hot breath before lips pressed to hers and so she was ready for the touch. Sakura had to admit it was pleasant, maybe a little more than pleasant, as lips teased hers into playing along.  
  
Perhaps there was something to Ino’s idea after all.  
  
...  
  
The pink-haired woman was pink-cheeked when Kiba pulled back, lips parted and thoroughly kissed, but she didn’t ask for more and Ino shooed the dog-man away. He seemed pleased with what he’d gotten and moved along without the need to voice threats on her part.  
  
This pleased Ino.  
  
What didn’t please Ino was who had been waiting behind Kiba. TenTen had obviously communicated to him to keep his mouth _shut_ , but Lee was Lee, and when he stepped up for his turn he posed dramatically. Ino could hear him screaming about the _’Springtime of Youth, yoshi!’_ loud and clear in her head, and winced.  
  
She silently apologized to her friend, but out loud said, “you’re up next.”  
  
...  
  
Sakura perked at the blonde’s voice and turned curiously to where she could feel rapid movement from the slight disturbances in the air before her. She wasn’t sure who the first man had been, but the speed with which the second closed in on her and pressed his lips to hers, crushing their mouths together, made her immediately recoil and wrinkle her nose in obvious protest.  
  
 _No._ Just no. She was slightly drunk and her judgement was questionable, but not so much that she could even be _tricked_ into doing more than that with _Lee._  
  
...  
  
Ino side-eyed Naruto.  
  
He grinned his biggest grin at her.  
  
She rolled her eyes and waved him forward. “Next.”  
  
...  
  
It was pleasant. Kind of.  
  
The mechanics were all right. Sakura couldn’t pin-point anything that was wrong with the kiss, but it certainly didn’t inspire her. Her heart wasn’t racing and she didn’t feel any tingles. The fact that she could break it down so much _as it was happening_ made the whole experience suspect.  
  
She put her hand on the man’s chest and lightly pushed, trying to be as gentle about her rejection as possible. It wasn’t his fault she was obviously broken. If she couldn’t get turned on from a kiss as good as that, then there had to be something wrong.  
  
“Sorry,” she said, real regret in her voice.  
  
“Aw, it’s okay, Sakura-chan,” Naruto said, smile crooked. “It was weird for me too.”  
  
“Naruto!”  
  
...  
  
Ino had to push Sakura back on the stool and forcefully hold her there as Naruto made his escape. “Idiot,” she muttered.  
  
Blue eyes flicked to the next man and she was more than surprised at who was waiting. Brows rose in question as she eyed his mask and his own just crinkled - he was smiling, she was sure - and he twirled his index finger as if to tell her to turn around.  
  
Ino narrowed her eyes at him.  
  
He lifted his brows, nodded at her as if to tell her to do what he wanted.  
  
She pursed her lips. “Fine.”  
  
...  
  
A hand slid to cup her jaw and the other went to her hip. Her skin prickled in awareness and her pulse sped. Before Sakura could further analyze her reaction, lips ghosted her jawline, pressed just below her ear, and then he nuzzled there, breathed her in.  
  
Her lips parted on an exhale and hands fluttered from where they rested on her knees to grip the material of his vest, tug him closer.  
  
She felt him smile against her skin and then he was moving again, hot breath puffing against her cheek, then her mouth, and she met his kiss when it came. It was _perfect_. Lips and tongue, and a firmness to the way he explored her mouth, held her, that caused a small sound to slip from her. Sakura felt her cheeks heat, but only tried to pull him closer.  
  
He seemed to feel the same way because the next thing she knew he’d tugged her off the stool and wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her against his body. Sakura had no idea who he was, but just that moment she didn’t really care. All she cared about was the mouth on hers, how his kisses made her whole body buzz, how much she liked the way his arm felt around her, how his body felt pressed to the length of hers.  
  
...  
  
It was only when the stool fell over that Ino whipped around. And all she could do was stare, mouth hanging open.  
  
Kakashi was so _hot._  
  
“Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.” The voice was low, amused.  
  
Ino shot her boyfriend a glare, though there was no heat behind it. “You would know.”  
  
Shikamaru just shrugged. “Mission accomplished?”  
  
She glanced back at Kakashi and Sakura. He wasn’t who she would have picked for her best friend, but he obviously inspired something in the pink-haired woman that no one else had before. He was older, and he used to be Sakura’s sensei, but that was forever and a day ago. They were eighteen now and Sakura was no virgin. She just needed someone who would treat her right, make her happy, and who could make sure she wasn’t so damn _edgy_ all the time.  
  
Kakashi looked like he was up to the job.  
  
She nodded. “Mission accomplished.” She leered at Shikamaru then and grabbed the front of his shirt to tug him closer. “At least that one. I also have a seduction mission on the agenda for tonight.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” He let himself be tugged toward a dark corner.  
  
“Oh, yeah.”

 


	2. Date Night (Kiba Inuzuka/Sakura Haruno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Warnings:** None!  
>  **Notes:** Written (very belatedly) for sister!dobbygrl for a 2011 drabble meme. She requested Kiba/Sakura with the prompt 'forest training'.

Sakura's chakra control is perfect. She can completely mask herself so she is invisible to even the most sensitive of sensor-types, and she is a good enough nin that she can all but disappear into her surroundings as well. If a pursuer cannot sense her, or see her, then they usually do not find her.

It is a very rare thing.

But it does happen. 

And that is why she trains with the one nin for whom sensing chakra means nothing. He can pick up her scent hours, days after she's passed through, can taste her on the breeze. 

Inuzuka Kiba can find her no matter how far she runs, no matter how good she hides, no matter what she does. 

It's so _annoying_ , she thinks, as she runs through the trees, from branch to branch so fast the canopy of leaves she is passing through is nothing but a green blur. 

She thought she had him this time. If she could manage to stay hidden, or stay out of his grasp until after the sun fully set, then she would win -- and finally satisfy herself that she could not only avoid chakra detection, but could avoid and evade even those with the most enhanced physical senses too.

But _dammit_ , he was hot on her heels.

A blur of white jumped into her path and she stopped so abruptly on the branch she landed on that she nearly lost her footing altogether… and then time caught up to her again and she felt his chakra gaining. So close. _Go go go gogogo_!

She jumped… and was caught midair.

They ended up tumbling to the forest floor. He broke their fall with a chakra enhanced landing on his feet, but then let their momentum roll them until they came to a stop with him sprawled on top of her. 

Sakura glared up at him. He was much too smug. "Get off." She pushed at his chest. 

He just smirked at her before nuzzling his nose to the spot just beneath her ear at the edge of her jaw. She felt his tongue flick to taste her skin.

Her pulse rabbited and a heated knot coiled low in her belly. Somehow her hands betrayed her as slim fingers gripped his jounin vest to pull him closer. "I'm sweaty and gross," she insisted.

"Tastes good," he murmured before nipping the sensitive skin there.

Sakura's breath caught. 

She liked to think she was an honest kunoichi -- and to be quite honest, there were definitely other reasons she trained with Kiba than to improve her skills as a ninja. Fridays were date night, too, after all.


	3. Coping (Sakura Haruno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** Character deaths  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "Ivory Tower" prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/2208.html?thread=22944#cmt22944) on Dreamwidth.

She traces the names. The edges of the grooves carved into the memorial stone were once jagged, but they are now smooth from time, weather, and the touch of those who are alive to remember and long for those whose names have been put there.

Sakura’s touch is one that has worn the stone smooth. Outlining the kanji that represent the people she love(s)d is the only way she can still touch them. Feel them. Naruto is there, and Sasuke and Sai. Kakashi’s name is engraved, as is Tsunade’s. Her parents. 

She does not cry anymore. The emptiness is a part of her now.

She says her good mornings with a brush of her thumb against his name, and a trace of her index finger against hers, and then her goodbye until tomorrows. In between she will disappear in her lab, behind her mask, covered by her lab coat. Science and medicine is her constant in between visits. 

She does not go on missions anymore. 

The ivory tower of intellectual pursuit, and disinterest in all outside of that, suits her now. ( _It is the only way she can survive and go on like they would have wanted her to. It is all she can stand._ )


	4. We'll Paint it Red, Part 1 (Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Warnings:** Blood  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "Snow" prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/2691.html?thread=31363#cmt31363) on Dreamwidth.

The scene looks like a painting. Like one of those abstract ones they've had to retrieve for some of the village's rich clients. Naruto can almost convince himself that's all it is. Just a conceptual rendering, nothing more than dyes and stain on a blank canvas.

But then he breaths in. The cold air burns his lungs and the coppery tang in the air coats his mouth. He can smell it. Taste it. He feels the kyuubi inside of him, hungry, wanting, thirsty for more. 

Naruto himself is blank. Time stands still and the cold seeps in. Through his skin, deep inside, past the kyuubi, into his soul. He cannot move, only stare.

The spill and spatter of blood against the pristine whiteness of snow is arresting in a beautiful kind of way, in a disturbing, frightening kind of way. He has seen blood before. He has spilled blood before. But this is too much blood. This is death's blood. It is fresh, and it is warm. The red is like the cherry popsicle stain on that white sundress Sakura wore last summer when they were undercover at a festival in Tea Country.

This is blood that he has spilled. This is a death he has caused. He is a murderer, a cold blooded killer. 

The panic creeps up, up, up from his belly, into his chest, and ...

"Naruto." Someone is shaking him.

" _Naruto_." And then there are cold hands cupping his face and all he can see is wide, worried green eyes. "Focus on me. It's not real. Whatever it is, it's not real. I'm real." Lips press to his, warm and soft. " _This_ is real," she says.

Everything wavers, fuzzy at the edges, and then it melts away and all he sees is Sakura. Naruto can breath again.


	5. We'll Paint it Red, Part 2 (Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "Circuitous" prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/3025.html?thread=39889#cmt39889) on Dreamwidth.

A straight line is the shortest distance between two points.

Straight lines are also the fastest way to get yourself killed. Predictability in retreat makes for an easy target. It is fortunate Naruto is predictable in his unpredictability. His brand of dumb luck is most potent when it shouldn't be.

It is why Sakura let's him take the lead in determining what will inevitably be a circuitous path away from their enemies.

When they finally stop to rest, chakra nearly spent, neither has any idea where they are. The important thing is that neither do their enemies.


	6. Forget (Sakura Haruno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Warnings:** Character deaths  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "T is for ____" prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/3736.html?thread=53656#cmt53656) on Dreamwidth.

**F is for fighting**

Because that is all they ever do. Sakura thought being a ninja would be fun. That there would be friends and adventures, and someday maybe they'd be heroes.

She was wrong.

**O is for obey**

Because that is the true reality of a ninja's existence. They exist to obey orders. Konoha likes to dress it up, call it the 'will of fire', but after all the fighting, and the killing, and the loss, Sakura knows the truth.

She is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

**R is for red**

Because it is the color of blood. It always comes back to blood. Blood of family, blood of the clans, who's blood is better, who's blood is more useful. These are the things villages care about. Sakura knows it differently. Blood is hot and sticky, and it spills too fast. It stains hands and hearts and minds and souls.

She knows that blood is life, but mostly in their line of work, it is death.

**G is for ghosts**

Because she is haunted. They are all haunted. They are haunted by their failures, the people and friends they couldn't save. The ghosts of the past whisper constantly. It is a burden ninja must carry. Some shoulder it better than others. Sakura is not a truly functional human being -- though none of them are, not really -- but she has her mind.

It is more than can be said for others. 

**E is for eulogy**

Because every ninja has heard too many of them. In a foreign country, in the middle of nowhere, a hole is dug and a comrade laid to rest, and words said too quickly because there just isn't time to linger. Standing in black by an open grave in Konoha. Gathering at the memorial stone to commemorate their friends and loved ones.

Sakura has done them all. She is sure to do them again. Someday, maybe soon, words will be spoken over her lifeless body. 

**T is for tired**

Because that is what she is. Sakura is tired of the fighting and the mindless obedience, and the blood, and the ghosts, and of saying goodbye to everyone she cares about. She's tired to the very depths of her soul. At the Academy every child learns all the various arts of the ninja -- everything they're told they'll need to know to become like the great ones whose faces are carved into the mountainside. No one teaches them how to deal with the fruit of their labor: pain, loss, death. 

Sakura just wants to _forget_.


	7. it doesn't matter (Kakashi Hatake/Sakura Haruno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** PG-13  
>  **Warnings:** Sexual situations  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "It doesn't matter" prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/3848.html?thread=58376#cmt58376) on Dreamwidth.

It doesn't matter.

This is what she tells herself when his lips skim down her throat, when his hands smooth over her body, and his fingers pluck at her shirt. It's what she tells herself when she cries his name some time later after their clothes have been shed and their bodies come together ( _over and over and over_ ). 

They don't love each other. ( _He doesn't love her, she can't love him, that's the way it has to be._ ) It's just need and want, and bodies. It's not ( _the way he looks in her eyes when he's moving inside her, makes her think there's something more than there is, and it's so painful it -- no, just no_ ) a relationship. It's just two people in the middle of a war who need a friend, and a little bit more.

And so it doesn't matter. 

( _It does. That is her secret._ )


	8. round and around and around (Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "Circle" prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/4285.html?thread=66237#cmt66237) on Dreamwidth.

This is Naruto's favorite. It's like the brush of a feather, but not so insubstantial ( _because that would tickle, and this feels like clouds and light and maybe happiness_ ). It's mostly just circles and figure-eights, and it's mostly just concentrated on the inside of his forearm, and a little bit on his inner wrist too because she's not really paying enough attention to wander anywhere else, but Naruto doesn't care. This feels like ( _love, contentment, sunny days and ramen_ ) home.

It stops.

"Sakkuuurraaa-chan." 

She starts as if she didn't realize she'd started, let alone stopped, and blinks at him blankly. He nudges her hand and an exasperated, fond kind of understanding tints her expression and she pokes him in the chest instead. "So needy."

He just agrees with her with big puppy eyes. ( _The ones that always make her expression soften just like that, and he wants to kiss her, and someday he will and she'll like it -- believe it!_ )

Sakura resumes tracing her fingers on the inside of his arm and goes back to reading her medical text. 

Naruto leans back against the tree trunk again and closes his eyes. ( _All his favorites. Sakura, and she's touching him, and it's a sleepy kind of hazy warm summer day, and all they need is the bastard, and then it would be perfect._ )

Round and around and around.


	9. Every stone block has a statue inside; it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. (Rock Lee)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "The flaw in the plan..." prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/42016.html?thread=677152#cmt677152) on Dreamwidth.

Rock Lee is not from Konoha, he has no family, no clan. His very name imparts his shame the moment it's heard -- that he is not important or remarkable enough to earn a proper surname. If he had manifested some kind of bloodline talent he would have inherited a clan name, or perhaps would have had the right to choose his surname should the talent be wholly new.

But Lee is not special. He is nothing more than a charity case, an unexpected rescue from the Land of Earth. He was a flaw in the plan; a product of a mission gone awry; a ward of Konoha because an anonymous ninja took pity on the suddenly orphaned infant who surely would have died had he been left behind. His name is 'Rock' because that is the universal surname for Earth orphans. 

His chakra reserves are pitifully low. It is most likely he is the descendent of civilians, simple mountain folk caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The truth nested in that seemingly benign liklihood is he has absolutely no potential to be a ninja. 

This is what he is told. Repeatedly. 

That is why Gai-sensei is Lee's hero. Gai-sensei helped Lee see that being a ninja isn't about blood or family or potential or even chakra. It's about caring enough to dedicate yourself to being the best you can be so you can protect the people most precious to you. Gai-sensei helped Lee see that being Rock was not shameful, but the challenge of a lifetime. A rock is unbendable, sturdy, firm. It can withstand storms and fire, and isn't the greatest rock of all a mighty mountain? 

Lee loves Gai-sensei. Gai-sensei saw worth where no one else ever had -- not even Lee.


	10. that's what she said (Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rating:** G  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Notes:** Written for the "Uh-huh." prompt at [lastfanstanding](http://lastfanstanding.dreamwidth.org/43622.html?thread=701798#cmt701798) on Dreamwidth.

"Sakura-chan?"

...

"Sakura-chan?"

...

"If a person is ignoring you -- _for very good reasons_ \-- poking them isn't going to endear them toward acknowledging your existence. In fact, it could be considered hazardous to one's health."

"Aw, come on, Sakura-chan. You know I didn't mean to."

"Uh-huh."

"I _loooooveeee_ you, and you love _meeeeeee_."

"Hmm."

"If it helps, you have really nice--ouch!! Sakura-chan!!"

"Don't finish that thought out loud, don't finish it in your head, and if I ever hear you talking about it ever again, you're _over_."

"... so mean."

"And don't forget it."

"... you loooooveeeee meeeeeee."

_Sigh._


End file.
